CHAPTER XI.VALLEY OF THE SCIND.
JOURNEY TO THE NISHAT BAGH—FLOATING GARDENS—SUPERFINE JOE—ISLE OF CHENARS—INSCRIPTION—NIGHTINGALES—SUDDEN STORM—SUNBUL—AN IRISHMAN’S DINNER—THE GUARDIAN OF THE LAKE—GANDERBUL—NOONSER—ENGAGEMENT OF A SHIKARREE—AN IRISHMAN LOSING HIS ‘PRESENCE OF MIND’—A HOLY MAN—CROSSING A RICKETY BRIDGE—VALLEY OF THE SCIND—BEARS.
JOURNEY TO THE NISHAT BAGH—FLOATING GARDENS—SUPERFINE JOE—ISLE OF CHENARS—INSCRIPTION—NIGHTINGALES—SUDDEN STORM—SUNBUL—AN IRISHMAN’S DINNER—THE GUARDIAN OF THE LAKE—GANDERBUL—NOONSER—ENGAGEMENT OF A SHIKARREE—AN IRISHMAN LOSING HIS ‘PRESENCE OF MIND’—A HOLY MAN—CROSSING A RICKETY BRIDGE—VALLEY OF THE SCIND—BEARS.
CHAPTER XI.
The weather had quite improved again, so we determined to proceed on our travels once more, and, having still retained our flat-bottomed gondolas, we gave orders to our new crew to take us through the drogjun, or water-gate, into the lake, whose embankments had caused so much alarm to the Maharajah and to everyone. How enchanting it all was! We had left our moorings in the afternoon, and the glow of the fading day was like a halo over mountain and woods.
Our destination was the Nishat Bagh, one of those fine old palaces built by one of the Mogul emperors. On our way through the clear water of the lake, we passed the floating gardens laden with melons. On every side were lotus-flowersand singhara plants. The lake was like a great mirror, in which the high mountains were reproduced. We landed at a flight of steps, and, mounting them, found ourselves in the terraced gardens among flowers and cherry-trees laden with fruit.
The Maharajah comes out occasionally from his gold-roofed dwelling in Srinagur, and is taken up the lake in his grand barge, landing at one or other of these summer habitations to spend the day. An order from our Resident can generally secure the use of rooms in any of the palaces for officers on leave. The rooms are bare; some of them quite open to the balcony overhanging the garden. Here we established ourselves for a time.
As we were idly gazing from the verandah, an arrival attracted our notice. It was that of a native arrayed in garments of gorgeous colours; but what was most remarkable was a large embroidery in silver on his shoulder. For some time we were greatly puzzled by this ornament; but, having got my glasses to bear on him, our delight was great to find the word ‘Superfine’ written on it. This conspicuous ornament wasno doubt the English manufacturers’ mark of the quality of the cloth in which this strange creature had clothed himself. We hailed him as ‘Superfine Joe,’ at which he seemed greatly pleased, as he salaamed repeatedly as he swaggered away. When night came on, our resting-place was in an alcove not far from a marble fountain situated in the centre of the fine hall. During the hours of darkness the breeze moaned sadly through this vast apartment, sounding like the sighs of those who had once lived and loved in this almost ruined palace.
When morning broke, we crossed the lake to Nishat Bagh, where we pitched our tents under the shade of some magnificent chenars planted in the time of Akbar. Before us was the calm and placid lake, the breadth of which is here some miles. Near where we landed is the Char Chenar, or Isle of Chenars, also called Rupa Lank, or Silver Island. Vigne visited this isle in 1835, and says there was a square temple upon it; but it no longer exists. He states a black marble tablet was placed there which has also disappeared. He informs us that it bore the following inscription:—
Three travellers,Baron Carl Von Hugel from Jamu,John Henderson from Ladâk,Godfrey Thomas Vigne from Iskardo,Who met in Sreennugger on November 18, 1835,Have caused the names of those Europeantravellers who had previously viewed the Vale of Kashmirto be hereunder engraved—Bernier, 1663,Forster, 1786,Moorcroft,Trebeck, andGuthrie, 1823,Jacquemont, 1831,Wolfe, 1832.
Of these, three only lived to return to their native country.
Seated outside our tents, the whole scene was very beautiful. The lake was dotted here and there in the far distance with boats plying from one place to another. Then, rising in proud grandeur on the opposite shore, the lofty mountains towered into the clear blue sky, while at their feet nestled ancient palaces among green trees and fruitful gardens. It was a scene of peaceful quiet, which is peculiar to Cashmere, owing to the absence of all wheeled traffic. The lovely climate of this beautiful land adds enchantment to every view.
‘Oh, to see it at sunset—when, warm o’er the lake,Its splendour at parting a summer eve throwsLike a bride, full of blushes, when lingering to takeA last look of her mirror at night ere she goes!’[5]
‘Oh, to see it at sunset—when, warm o’er the lake,Its splendour at parting a summer eve throwsLike a bride, full of blushes, when lingering to takeA last look of her mirror at night ere she goes!’[5]
‘Oh, to see it at sunset—when, warm o’er the lake,Its splendour at parting a summer eve throwsLike a bride, full of blushes, when lingering to takeA last look of her mirror at night ere she goes!’[5]
‘Oh, to see it at sunset—when, warm o’er the lake,
Its splendour at parting a summer eve throws
Like a bride, full of blushes, when lingering to take
A last look of her mirror at night ere she goes!’[5]
It is no less attractive when seen by moonlight.
‘Or to see it by moonlight—when mellowly shinesThe light o’er its palaces, gardens, and shrines,When the waterfalls gleam like a quick fall of stars,And the nightingale’s hymn from the Isle of ChenarsIs broken by laughs and light echoes of feetFrom the cool shining walks where the young people meet.’[6]
‘Or to see it by moonlight—when mellowly shinesThe light o’er its palaces, gardens, and shrines,When the waterfalls gleam like a quick fall of stars,And the nightingale’s hymn from the Isle of ChenarsIs broken by laughs and light echoes of feetFrom the cool shining walks where the young people meet.’[6]
‘Or to see it by moonlight—when mellowly shinesThe light o’er its palaces, gardens, and shrines,When the waterfalls gleam like a quick fall of stars,And the nightingale’s hymn from the Isle of ChenarsIs broken by laughs and light echoes of feetFrom the cool shining walks where the young people meet.’[6]
‘Or to see it by moonlight—when mellowly shines
The light o’er its palaces, gardens, and shrines,
When the waterfalls gleam like a quick fall of stars,
And the nightingale’s hymn from the Isle of Chenars
Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet
From the cool shining walks where the young people meet.’[6]
As we lingered under the shade of the green-leaved trees, I endeavoured to make a sketch, and thought I had succeeded pretty well. Seeing M’Kay pass near me, I called, and asked her how she liked my drawing. As she did not answer, I said,
‘You know where that is?’
Poor M’Kay was always anxious to give pleasure to anyone, so she said, in her pleasant Scotch voice,
‘Oh yes, sir; that’s your bungalow at Murree.’
Alas for my fine sketch of the Cashmere mountains!
Time fled very pleasantly in our gipsy encampment.The scene was occasionally varied by the presence of the Maharajah as he went past in his gilded barge, followed by his courtiers in large and picturesque boats. Sometimes we paid visits to the gardens of Shalimar, and rested during the heat of the day in Nourmahal’s Pavilion. This pavilion is built of marble, and the pillars which support it are of black marble. It is in the centre of a reservoir of clear water, and there are one hundred and forty-four large fountains springing from it.
‘Th’ Imperial Selim held a feastIn his magnificent Shalimar:In whose saloons, when first the starOf evening o’er the waters trembled,The valley’s loveliest all assembled;All the bright creatures that, like dreams,Glide through the foliage, and drink beamsOf beauty from its fount and streams.’[7]
‘Th’ Imperial Selim held a feastIn his magnificent Shalimar:In whose saloons, when first the starOf evening o’er the waters trembled,The valley’s loveliest all assembled;All the bright creatures that, like dreams,Glide through the foliage, and drink beamsOf beauty from its fount and streams.’[7]
‘Th’ Imperial Selim held a feastIn his magnificent Shalimar:In whose saloons, when first the starOf evening o’er the waters trembled,The valley’s loveliest all assembled;All the bright creatures that, like dreams,Glide through the foliage, and drink beamsOf beauty from its fount and streams.’[7]
‘Th’ Imperial Selim held a feast
In his magnificent Shalimar:
In whose saloons, when first the star
Of evening o’er the waters trembled,
The valley’s loveliest all assembled;
All the bright creatures that, like dreams,
Glide through the foliage, and drink beams
Of beauty from its fount and streams.’[7]
Now all is silent. The palace is forsaken, and the gardens deserted. But, happier than our old Scotland, the nightingale is heard among the trees which surround this fairy place; although, according to a Scotch assistant-surgeon,there are nightingales in our Highland homes. The surgeon being asked to describe one, he gave his impression of the lovely songster in these terms:—
‘It’s got a heed like a caat: aboot the beegness of a pigion; and flits aboot at night; and cries, hewt! hewt!’
We could linger no longer among the fine forest of chenars near that beautiful lake, so our camp was broken up, and we reluctantly departed for the Scind Valley. We were fortunate in having the moon to light us on our way. Very beautiful was the lake enshrined among the giant hills. As we moved slowly along, a storm rushed up, sweeping the waters into real waves. The flash of the lightning was incessant, and the roar of the thunder never ceased as it rattled among the mountains. But the storm passed almost as suddenly as it had arrived.
We allowed our boatmen to take us wherever they liked best, only stipulating that we should find ourselves halted in the morning at some suitable camping-ground for breakfast.
Sunbul was the place they selected, and there we breakfasted under the shade of some wides-preadingsycamores. There was little variety in our food. We carried with us tea, and a few tins of soup, which we only used on the march. Besides these, my wife had a small store of dainties, which only saw light on special occasions. We trusted for the rest to the fowls and eggs of the country. Potatoes and bread, which were always plentiful, we had to send for to Srinagur. Milk was abundant; but beef we never saw. Bulls and cows being sacred, we might have answered, as the Irishman did, when asked to dinner by Dan O’Connell:
‘Come to dinner, a quiet dinner. Ye’ll get nothing but potatoes and beef.’
‘Bedad,’ answered Paddy, ‘I’ll come. It’s the same dinner I have every day—barrin’ the beef.’
After a two hours’ halt, we proceeded on to Manusbul Lake, passing through a narrow canal, and under a very ancient one-arched bridge.
The canal is about a mile long, and then you emerge into the clearest water of this most picturesque lake. In the shallow parts the lotus abounds, the leaves of which are very long and of great diameter. We saw on our left an elevated table-land, at the foot of which is the village ofManusbul. Near this hamlet are the ruins of Bádsháh Bágh, an old palace built by Jehángir for his wife, the lovely Nourmahal. On the right, a low range of hills extends from high mountains. We landed and paid a visit to the guardian of the lake, a very holy fakeer, with a gentle, good expression of face, who is spending his life digging himself a grave. When we were there, he had tunnelled out some fifty feet, and as he was then a man in the prime of life, if he is still alive, he must have burrowed a long way in. Whatever fruit happens to be in season in the valley at the time of a visitor’s advent, this holy man will give it in greater perfection than it can be procured anywhere else.
The mosquitoes were very troublesome here, so we embarked again, and floated away over the clear deep water of the lake, and finally arrived at Ganderbul, where our horses awaited us. We encamped for the night in a tope of fine trees, and next morning continued our march up the Scind Valley. The river Scind was still in flood, and two bridges had been swept away, and the waters were over the lower path, so we decided to proceed to Noonur, which is only three milesfrom Ganderbul, and there to halt. The distance being so short, we thought it better to walk, and never did a march seem longer than this one. There was no shade, and we were on a narrow path in the midst of rice-fields. The sun beat down piteously on the marshy ground, from which exhaled a stifling air. At length we arrived at Noonur, which is a pretty, English-looking village, nestling among fruit-trees and chenars. Our four tents were pitched under the shade of one of these nobles of the forest. The horses were picketed at a little distance off, near a walnut-tree, and a tiny stream of clear and sparkling water ran past our encampment. Here we were regularly beset by ‘shikarries,’ the gamekeepers of the valley.
We had reached the bear country. I selected one of these men, a nice-looking fellow, who had only one ‘chit,’ or letter of recommendation, but that one was most satisfactory, the writer testifying to all that was said in favour of ‘Jan of Kangan.’ On being asked for his other ‘chits,’ he said they were left in his home in the mountains—‘But surely,’ he added, ‘that was sufficient;’ and so he was engaged, and we were spared the continualannouncement, ‘A shikarrie waits.’ Our new gillie made himself useful, bringing us any amount of unripe mulberries. M’Kay also went off into the woods, and returned with basketfuls of cooking pears and apples. We remained at Noonur some days—quiet, dreamy, unremarkable days.
One morning our honest gamekeeper was brought before me like a prisoner, guarded by three other greatly roused shikarries. They salaamed most respectfully, and inquired if the sahib had engaged this man, the prisoner, as ‘Jan of Kangan.’ He was not the said Jan of Kangan, for Jan of Kangan was the man who now addressed ‘your royal highness, the provider of the poor.’ This fellow was a common coolie, who had stolen Jan’s ‘chit’—here were the others to prove what he had said was not true. The false Jan was speechless, and had nothing to say. He had not the ready wit of an Irish soldier-servant I once had, whom I found telling a most palpable falsehood. On being afterwards accused by me of saying what was not true, be drew himself up to military attention and said, ‘Plase, sir, I lost my prisince of mind.’
The only drawback to Noonur was an excessivelyholy fakeer, who appeared at unexpected moments, gesticulating furiously, evidently perfectly mad. The Cashmerians looked on him with intense respect, and our servants told us that the Maharajah had begged the holy man to come and live with him, and had offered him beautiful presents, but the fakeer had refused his highness’s offers, and had thrown the gifts in his face.
We had not had any rain for a week, so the Tickedar was summoned, and coolies ordered. Bitterly cold it was at half-past three in the morning, as we felt our way out of the tent ropes, and we were only too glad to walk and keep our blood circulating. When day broke, we had fairly entered the Scind Valley, in which we overtook numbers of flat-faced, Chinese-looking coolies, all laden, travelling generally in the employment of some merchant back to Ladâk.
At first the path was good, but we were soon in difficulties. The river had carried away one part of the track, and in others the water had overflowed and then receded, leaving a most slippery road. So there was nothing for it but to ride our horses into the river, the Scind, whichhad covered the whole of the low ground. At last we had to retrace our steps, clamber up the mountain-side, and hit off another approach to the bridge. Many misgivings assailed us when about a mile from where our guide told us was Kangan. We saw what was evidently a sahib’s horse grazing, and its syce squatting on the bank opposite to us. We asked him why he was there. He did not dare to face the waters, he said, so he was waiting till the river subsided, or till his sahib returned. On we rode beside the foaming torrent to a place where it widened into three branches. The chokedar called a halt; we had arrived at the bridges. There were two very rapid rivers to cross, which we had to do by wading, and then the main body was bridged. A native went first, and, although the waters surged around him, he was able to hold his own against the tide.
So we followed on our horses. Having crossed in safety the two branches, we then came to the bridge, a pile of loose stones on either side, round which the waters madly rushed. It supported a frail ladder, turfed over in some places, the sods kept down by heavy stones that weighed thetrembling structure down to the waves. However, M’Kay must have got over, for there was no trace of her, and our advance-guard of coolies and servants had also certainly managed to get across. We dismounted, and handed the nags to their respective syces. Nila climbed the pile of loose stones supporting the bridge like a cat, and fearlessly followed the syce over the troubled waters, hopping over holes in the neatest possible fashion. But Silver Tail, more impetuous, made a rush at the stone-work, to the vast alarm of his syce, who saw the near approach of a watery grave, and held on with all his might to his charger’s head, shouting for assistance. But at length they both got over all safe. My wife held on to one end of a stick, while the chokedar had the other end firmly grasped in his hand. She landed all right from this swaying structure, which had no parapet, and through which the furious flood was plainly visible beneath.
In my opinion the dogs gave us most trouble in our efforts to get over this rickety structure. We were all rejoiced when we were assembled on the Kangan side of the river, and, when everything was fairly over the bridge, we continued onour way to where our tents were pitched under the shade of some walnut-trees, and where M’Kay was ready to receive us with the welcome ‘doctor.’
The valley of the Scind is narrow, but the scenery is very grand and beautiful. On each side rose lofty mountains whose summits were covered with snow, and whose precipitous sides are clothed with forests of deodars. Lower down chestnut, sycamore, and walnut-trees take the place of those giant firs. Villages surrounded by cultivated land are sprinkled here and there on the banks of the river; fruit-trees afford a welcome shade, and the green carpet of grass a pleasant place on which to pitch the wanderer’s camp. We enjoyed our luncheon very much, for in honour of the occasion my wife produced some of her most precious stores, and we had among other dainties a Stilton cheese and a bottle of milk punch; so we decided to devote the remainder of the day to rest and quiet enjoyment under the shade of a huge walnut-tree.
I smoked a cigar, while my wife, by the aid of my glasses, examined every nook and corner of the high mountain which towered above us. Allof a sudden she exclaimed, ‘I see a bear!’ and there, far up on the hill-path, a bear and her cub were plainly seen. It was a pretty picture, for the mother was playing with her child, rolling it over and running away, then coming back and falling down, while the little cub jumped over her. Well, I did not go after them. Perhaps the milk punch and the cheese prevented me; anyway, I left them alone, but a brother officer, arriving soon after, encamped not far from us, and he went and shot the cub and then the mother, but nearly lost his life in doing so, for the old bear was so furious when her cub was killed that she charged my friend at a moment when his rifle was not loaded. Fortunately for him, however, another sportsman came up to the rescue, and Bruin received a bullet which finished her.
There were several bears seen during our halt at this charming camping-ground. I went out several times to shoot, but was not successful. My shikarrie generally got me out of bed about three in the morning, and we sallied forth by the light of the moon, and climbed up one of those steep mountains on which my wife had spied themother and child. The bears came down during the night from their haunts in the mountains to feed on the ripe mulberries in the valley.
My shikarrie’s plan was to take me up the mountain before dawn, and to post me behind a rock where the bears were likely to pass, as they always returned up the mountain from the valley when the day broke. I may safely say that, on these occasions, I never saw a bear. A strong smell of a menagerie was sometimes perceptible, and the broken branch of a mulberry-tree would give evidence that Bruin had been there; but I was never fortunate enough to get a shot at one. I think the fur of the American bears finer than that of the Cashmerian ones.